Guest Commentary | ‘Keep it in the ground’ movement deserves more scrutiny – by Seth Whitehead (News Gazette – March 28, 2021)

https://www.news-gazette.com/

The Department of Energy and virtually every other reputable source forecasts
oil and natural gas remaining the country’s dominant source of energy for at
least the next 30 years.

Energy makes the high standard of living most Americans enjoy possible. Affordable, reliable energy is the lifeblood of our economy. And as University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology director Dr. Scott Tinker recently noted, “All forms of energy come from the earth.”

It is with those fundamental facts in mind that keep-it-in-the-ground groups should be viewed as anti-U.S. energy.

Though it’s obvious that traditional energy sources such as oil, natural gas and coal come from the ground, it is often overlooked that wind, solar and battery technologies would not be possible without massive mining projects.

So it is ironic that the same groups that are pushing government leaders to “transition” to 100 percent wind and solar vehemently oppose the domestic copper, cobalt, lithium and rare-earth-mineral mining needed for renewable-energy infrastructure.

It is because of well-funded campaigns by groups such as the Sierra Club and Earthworks that U.S. mineral mining is currently being “kept to a minimum,” to use the Sierra Club’s verbiage, and far below the levels needed to domestically source the type of “green” energy revolution these activists insist is needed.

For the rest of this column: https://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/guest-commentary-keep-it-in-the-ground-movement-deserves-more-scrutiny/article_9527f194-61fd-5f0a-97cb-44bf04eaf43a.html